


life's too short to even care at all

by TheKnittingJedi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Future Fic, Love Confessions, M/M, Meditations on Mortality, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Actually Unrequited Love, OCs exist but are barely mentioned, POV Caleb Widogast, Professors, What's Dumber Than Wizards Nothing, lifespan difference angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29917551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi
Summary: A series of dinners over the years between Caleb and Essek, who teach at the same magic school and don't realize they've been in love with each other for the past decade.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 25
Kudos: 138





	life's too short to even care at all

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try and write something fluffy this weekend!, I said on Friday. I'm so sorry.
> 
> Thanks as always to my incredible betas [Pancake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Criticalpancake/pseuds/Criticalpancake) and [Katie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmackatie/pseuds/KmacKatie), you are the best and I care u.
> 
> Title from the opening lyrics to [this song](https://youtu.be/UAsTlnjvetI), which affect me just a tiny bit less than 'I don't wanna die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all'.

Dinner is served, the wine is ready, and Essek is late.

Caleb tries not to worry, but hold habits are hard to break, and worrying for his friends’ safety is one of his oldest habits, even now that the war is over, the world is saved and everyone he loves is safe. He sees most of them less than he would like to, with Jester and Fjord settling down in Nicodranas, the two of them living not far from the Brenattos, and Caduceus working on eradicating the blight in his home. Beau and her now wife Yasha stop by from time to time; they like to chat and rest as Expositor Lionett travels from place to place, keeping Wildemount in line. His lodgings on the school grounds are modest, but he has a spare room with a fairly comfortable bed and a roof that doesn’t (often) leak, which is more than his two old friends have when they’re on the road. He always splurges on the Tower if he can afford it that day, which isn’t always the case, since Caleb rarely spares himself in class, helping his students and demonstrating the spells he teaches to the limits of his capabilities.

All in all, he leads a humble, busy life, devoted to teaching and research, which, apart from his friends, are the things he loves most. His weekly dinners with Essek are a much needed break from his routine, and his friend probably indulges him for the same reason.

And he’s never been late before.

He could have forgotten, Caleb muses. It hasn’t been going on long enough to become a tradition, it’s just been… He starts counting the months, which quickly turn into years in his mind, and he blinks as he realizes that apparently the two of them have been having dinner together once a week for the last seven years, five months and two weeks.

*

“A magic school?”

Staring at him over the rim of his wine glass, Essek’s eyes haven’t left Caleb since he started the speech he’s been rehearsing for the last three days.

He decided to contact Essek long before that, of course. To be honest, the thought has been on his mind since before he inaugurated the school itself. But that was to be expected, since Essek was his teacher for a short while, and an excellent one at that. Of course Caleb thought about him.

Putting his fork down on the edge of his empty plate just so he would stop fidgeting with it, Caleb interlaces his long fingers, willing his hands to stay still. “Ah, _ja_. I’m currently overseeing the tutelage of seven pupils, from nine to fourteen years of age. Teaching them the basics, you know, and something a little more advanced to the oldest ones. But I was thinking of expanding my classes, of delving into more complex and interesting magic, and—” He stops abruptly, taking a sip from his glass before realizing it’s empty.

With a smirk that has no mockery in it (it has something else, in fact, something amused and a bit soft), Essek refills Caleb’s glass and tops off his own for good measure.

The establishment they’re dining in, a cozy and quaint restaurant on the Nicodranian seafront, was chosen by Caleb on Jester’s advice, which came with a recommendation to absolutely try the honeyflame bread, as well as more colorful advice and a few winks. Caleb had determinedly ignored the last part, deeming it a necessary price to pay to be able to enjoy a good dinner with a friend he hasn’t seen in _(too long)_ a while.

With a thankful — if a bit stiff — nod, Caleb takes a gulp of wine and looks at Essek. “What are you doing right now?” he asks, before he loses his courage.

The drow looks as relaxed as Caleb is nervous. It’s a nice contrast to his behavior the last time they saw each other: fighting for their lives — and everyone else’s — in Eiselcross. He doesn’t look very different from the haughty, sardonic courtier who took the Mighty Nein under his reluctant wing in Rosohna, but all the sharp edges and the automatic deflections are gone, replaced by something that’s not quite warmth but could bloom into it, if tended with care.

Shifting in his seat, Caleb wonders if this is how Essek always is these days, or if it’s just for him, then puts the thought aside.

“I’m currently enjoying an excellent meal with a good friend, but I assume you don’t mean this,” Essek answers with a grin. He inhales, uncrossing and crossing his legs again under the table as he muses on his answer. “I’m in Rosohna, at least most of the time. In the Marble Tomes, primarily, as I have a position there, but I travel to places of interest, sometimes.”

There’s definitely some of his old guardedness in his answer, and Caleb respects that enough to avoid prying. “Trying to go back to your old life?”

Essek’s laugh is short and self-deprecating. “I’m not a young and starry-eyed hundred-year-old anymore. I know that I will never be able to go back to that, and I have no desire to. That’s why I’m no longer the Shadowhand.” He takes a sip of wine, slow and meditative. “I assume this last question isn’t a change of subject, is it? You’re not just interested in my day to day for small talk’s sake.”

Caleb can’t help the smile that curves his mouth. “Perceptive as always. No, while I’m definitely interested in anything you care to share about your life, I’m asking for a more selfish reason. I want to know if whatever it is you’re doing now could stand to be interrupted.”

Essek narrows his eyes, but the light smirk doesn’t leave his lips. “For the right reason.”

Caleb puts his glass down, looks at it, and then at Essek. “Is teaching magic to a handful of teens a good enough reason?”

*

While their school (it stopped being just ‘his’ school as soon as Essek had accepted his proposition) rises on Empire land on the outskirts of Zadash, they accept students from everywhere and don’t have political ties to anything. Caleb has always been immovable on the subject, and Essek was quick to agree when Caleb first talked to him about the institute’s neutrality.

Essek was relatively quick to agree to everything, to be fair. It was as if he was waiting for this, or something like it. Caleb had not dared to hope his friend could find the same meaning in teaching that he himself had sought and found, but he remembered the moment they sealed their deal, and the new light shining in Essek’s eyes.

The dinner tradition started on its own, really. They saw plenty of each other, even if each of them taught his own separate class; it was necessary to keep each other updated on their students’ progress, and they planned and discussed their lessons together. By unspoken agreement, though, they never talked shop at dinner.

Frumpkin is soft and warm in Caleb’s lap, and he purrs as the wizard pets him absent-mindedly. Caleb’s sitting on one of the two chairs in front of the fireplace, where many discussions continued far into the night over the years.

He’s going to miss this, Caleb realizes, when it stops. Of course it won’t last forever. It’s already been going on for far longer than he’d hoped. Essek has been indulging his whims and his company and has somehow not gotten bored of him yet, but he will find something more exciting and rewarding to do, some day.

Just as his thoughts take the melancholy route, there’s a knock at the door. A perfunctory one, since the door opens before Caleb can answer. Frumpkin jumps out of his lap as he gets out of the chair to greet a breathless Essek.

“I apologize for my tardiness,” he says, picking up the cat without stopping on his way to Caleb. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for long.”

 _Thirty-five minutes and fifteen seconds_ , Caleb thinks, and then he smiles, touching Essek’s shoulder briefly and motioning towards the table, where the magically-still-warm food is ready for them. “Not at all. Has something happened?”

The frown on Essek’s forehead doesn’t go away as he sits in his place, Frumpkin still in his arms. He seems to need the reassuring weight of Caleb’s familiar, who is more than happy to comply. Caleb doesn’t even have to ask him to start purring. “It’s just been a day,” he says, in the kind of voice that lets Caleb know he doesn’t want to talk about it.

 _As you wish_ , he thinks, but then he notices that Essek is not eating. “Is this about the school?” He wants to respect his boundaries, but he has to know if something happened for which they might get in trouble.

With a frustrated sigh, Essek nods, then shakes his head. “It’s hard to explain,” he offers, before shutting up again.

In the silence that follows, Caleb studies his face. The drow hasn’t aged visibly since the first time they met, but he wears his hair differently since he let it grow out a bit, and he swapped his old mantle for a simpler, more practical one. Caleb has wondered if Essek looks like his old self when he’s back in Rosohna, if this is the version of himself he wants to show around here, and which of the two he’s more comfortable in.

“You know you can talk to me,” he says. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t do that with Essek anymore.

Eventually Essek makes eye contact with him, and if Caleb was expecting a polite acknowledgement and a dismissal, the concern he sees in the drow’s lilac eyes sends a shiver down his spine.

Essek opens his mouth and closes it. His fingers tighten in Frumpkin’s fur and he hesitates for a moment before speaking again, in a voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “You’re dying, Caleb.” 

*

“And what will Empire parents think,” Essek asks, “of a Dynasty wizard teaching their children?”

Essek didn’t take Caleb’s offer immediately, of course. Oh, he liked the idea well enough, but he wanted to discuss it first, and Caleb was happy to oblige. Even if he ended up saying no, at least they could have another dinner and another long conversation over it.

“Maybe not all of them will be happy at first,” Caleb replies, “but we must start somewhere. There is peace between the Empire and the Dynasty now, and what better way of making sure it lasts than teaching the younger generations there is no need to fear our former enemies?”

Caleb isn’t whispering exactly, but he keeps his voice down. They’re in a Rosohna establishment tonight, Essek’s treat, and even if there’s no need to be secretive anymore, old habits etcetera etcetera. It hasn’t escaped his trained eyes how people look at them here, heroes of the Dynasty and the Empire and the whole continent, openly sharing a meal.

A meal, and wine that’s worth every gold coin it costs.

Essek makes it swirl in his glass, where it glints like liquid rubies. “I’ll have to delegate several of my duties at the Marble Tomes,” he muses.

Caleb tries to hide his satisfaction in hearing him talk logistics instead of outright refusing, but Essek notices him smiling anyway and arches an eyebrow, leveling him an unimpressed look. Caleb nods slightly in a silent apology. “You could spin it as an international cooperation effort. All in the name of diplomacy, to maintain a good relationship with your neighbors and allies. It doesn’t even need to be a lie.”

Essek arches his other eyebrow as well. “It won’t be easy,” he warns.

“I never thought it would be,” Caleb answers. “I’m going to do it anyway.”

Essek’s small smile is impenetrable, but Caleb knows he’s not making fun of him. In the end, the drow lifts his glass. “Why not try,” he says.

With a half smile of his own, Caleb lifts his glass in response. Their crystal surfaces clink delicately against one another. “Why not indeed.”

*

The silence is broken by a loud crackle in the fireplace, but neither of them flinches. They could be statues, unblinking and unmoving. Despite all the time they’ve known each other, all the years they’ve worked side by side, Caleb doesn’t think they’ve ever held eye contact this long.

“I’m dying,” he echoes eventually.

His voice seems to break the strange spell between them, and Essek inhales sharply, leaning back, hugging Frumpkin, who chirps softly. He still hasn’t touched his food. “I’m sorry, I should go.”

“No.” The word leaves Caleb’s lips before he can stop it, half a prayer, half an order. Essek freezes, eyes wide and helpless and frightened and challenging. Caleb reaches out, even if there isn’t a part of Essek that he can touch, so his hand just rests on the tablecloth, as near to him as it can. “You’re upset. What is it? What happened?”

He sees Essek’s shoulders slump with a defeated sigh. Even if more pressing things are on Caleb’s mind — namely what has his friend behaving in such a weird way, and why does he think Caleb is dying — part of him is also proud in the knowledge that he’s the only person Essek would allow to see himself like this, his barriers down, no artifice.

Essek covers his face with his hands for a moment. The delicate fingers Caleb has seen weaving elegant runes and lines in the air, carrying the tip of a quill across the most expensive paper as he wrote with the most expensive ink, and lifting countless glasses to his lips, those fingers Caleb has never held in his own are now pressing between his eyes, as if to stave off a headache. “I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

It’s barely a whisper, coming behind his hands, and Caleb could pretend he hasn’t heard it, could insist he repeats it.

But he’s been a teacher for almost ten years, now. He waits.

Eventually, Essek sighs again and lets his hands fall delicately on Frumpkin, sinking into his fur for comfort. “It’s hard to see the kids grow and go away,” he says without looking at Caleb, without looking at anything. “It’s hard to see your hair turn gray and the lines on your face, and to be reminded that this will all end soon and I will still be here. Most days I can ignore it. Today isn’t one of those days. I’m sorry.”

Even if Essek is not looking at him, Caleb doesn’t look away from him for a moment. “What are you apologizing for?” he asks, just as softly as Essek, and he watches him shake his head.

“You didn’t need to know this. This isn’t a matter either of us can solve or make better, so it’s pointless to address it.”

“Not if it’s making you miserable.” Caleb leans in a bit more. His hand is still on the table, even if it only serves as a reminder of how Essek is just out of his reach. “How long have you been feeling this way?”

After a moment, Essek’s jaw tenses even more. Caleb leans back when the drow stands up abruptly, making Frumpkin jump on the ground, and heads towards the door.

But he has to walk past Caleb to do that, and Caleb’s reflexes are honed by a lifetime of having to make quick decisions. He’s on his feet before Essek can escape, his hand on Essek’s forearm, not squeezing or restraining. Just there.

And, even if he’s not restrained, Essek stops.

“I thought you were happy here,” Caleb says, looking at his profile.

Essek doesn’t turn around, but he doesn't pull away either. “I’m happy enough,” he answers in a clipped voice.

Caleb hesitates, then takes a step forward. It’s not the first time they have been this close, by far. They lean in each other’s space all the time, when they work together. But for some reason this feels different. This feels personal.

“You’re right,” Caleb says quietly. “There’s nothing I can do to change the fact that, if nothing happens to either of us, I will age and die before you. You’ve always known this. You knew it when I asked you to teach with me, and you said yes anyway.”

Essek’s head whips towards him, then, and his eyes pin him with a sharp, hurt gaze. “And why do you think I did it?” he almost hisses. “Did you expect me to throw away the chance to…” He shuts his mouth before he can finish the sentence, pressing his lips together in a tight line.

Something old and familiar stirs in Caleb’s chest, blinking and stretching like an animal that has just been awakened, ears perked up. Caleb wills it to go back to sleep, so it won’t distract him. There are many ways Essek’s sentence could have ended, and not necessarily how this soft, needy part of him craves.

“Is there anything I can do,” he says, ignoring the way his voice is shaking, “to make things easier for you?”

The smile on Essek’s lips is a forced, ugly thing. “You can’t. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“Is there anything I can do at all?” Caleb insists, tightening his grip on Essek’s forearm.

His friend looks down at Caleb’s hand. “Nothing that I deserve to hope for,” he says in monotone, looking elsewhere, looking everywhere but at Caleb.

*

It’s during one of their dinners, or rather after one of them, that the thing between them almost ceases to be unspoken.

“I think I interrupted a lover’s quarrel today,” Essek says, as they’re enjoying their fireplace drinks. “Or the closest thing a few seventeen-year-old humans could have to that.”

Caleb almost chokes on his drink. “You’d be surprised. Was it Hana and her partners?” he asks, and then laughs when Essek makes a face.

“Oh, Light, she has more than one?”

“It seems so. Let me know if they disrupt your lessons, I’ll have a word with them.”

“I can have a word with them.” Essek looks at him with arched eyebrows. “I’m their teacher too.”

“But I have known the three of them since they were still sleeping with stuffed animals.” Caleb leans back against the chair, trying to find a position that would ease the pain in the small of his back that seems to be ever-present these days. “Isn’t this sort of thing usual in the Dynasty?”

Essek inhales deeply, his brow furrowing in concentration. His skin seems almost translucent in the firelight, like a clear gemstone or shallow water. Even if he’s too far to see them, Caleb knows there’s a dusting of white freckles on his cheeks that look like constellations in the right light.

“It’s not unheard of,” he answers, “but I really wouldn’t know if it’s common or not. I have no interest in knowing the details of people’s private lives if I can avoid it, and obviously I have no experience myself.”

If Caleb hadn’t been drinking, he wouldn’t ask. Or maybe alcohol is just a convenient scapegoat for his curiosity. “Obviously.”

His tone is gently teasing, but Essek goes very still for a moment, then he looks up from his drink with a wary expression. “Of course this cannot be news to you.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Caleb shifts again. “You never share details about your private life either, Thelyss. How am I supposed to know?”

He has the distinct impression that Essek is about to rebuke him, then he visibly gets himself under control. “That’s because there’s nothing to share. Widogast,” he answers pointedly, “am I to infer that you kept one or several significant others secret from me this whole time?”

Caleb smirks, but there’s a sour taste in his mouth. “I spend all my time in this school, or with you, or both. Where would I find the time?”

When he finally looks back at him, Essek is smiling as well. “You’re resourceful.”

Caleb almost laughs. Instead, he swallows. “Not in this field. I always end up losing everyone I care about, one way or the other.”

He didn’t mean to sound maudlin, and he’s starting to apologize when Essek scoffs. “That’s not true,” he says, with casual confidence. In the end, it’s Essek who breaks eye contact first, looking into his glass. “That’s not true,” he repeats, more quietly.

He goes home not long after that. They never talk about their private lives again.

*

“We are doing good work here, Essek.” They are so close that Caleb is almost speaking in his ear. He still hasn’t let go of Essek’s arm, and Essek still isn’t looking at him. “Everything we hoped for, and more.”

Essek shakes his head, strands of hair falling on his forehead. “I know, I shouldn't have…”

“Let me finish.” Caleb cups Essek’s elbow with his other hand. It’s as close as he dares to get to him. “I didn't expect you to say yes when I asked you to join me. I asked you because I thought you would make an excellent teacher, and that you would find joy in it, but also because I wanted to. Because I would have regretted it if I’d left that road unexplored.”

He doesn’t know if confessing all this right now is a good choice. But what else could he do, with Essek talking about death and hope and being undeserving? The soft, starving animal of his own hope is awake now, and it won’t leave him alone until it has been either fed or put out of its misery.

“And when you said yes, I thought this was all I was allowed to have. You, me and our work. But I still want. I’ve always wanted. I just didn’t think I was worthy of you.”

There’s stillness again, and a silence that feels like the first ice that covers the river early in the winter, the one he warns his students not to trust.

Caleb lets it stretch for ten long seconds before saying, “You already have so many regrets. I don’t want to give you more.” And he lets him go.

Before he can take a step back, before he can go and be alone and mourn the loss of his deepest, softest hope, Essek turns towards him, with surprise and disbelief and… something else in his eyes. And before Caleb can decipher it, Essek leans forward, takes his face in both hands and kisses him lightly on the lips.

It’s quick and feather-light and Caleb has barely the time to register it, but he doesn’t even think of pulling back. His survival instinct doesn’t work with Essek, because he knows that he will never, ever hurt him intentionally.

For a moment, this is all there is: Essek’s hands, warm on his cheeks, and the memory of his lips on Caleb’s. When Essek speaks, his breath is a ghost on Caleb’s mouth. “I regret every moment I wasted before doing this,” he says.

*

(The dinners are an excuse, obviously, as weird as it is that Caleb would need one to spend time with someone he already sees so much of, but feelings don’t have to be rational.

So, when Essek stays late one night after dinner, and Caleb offers him the guest room, reasoning that he’ll be more comfortable trancing on a proper bed, the words _come into my bed instead, we don’t have to do anything, I just need to know that you’re alive and safe and near, it is literally all I need_ almost leave his lips. Almost.)

*

They are comfortable with each other, having shared so much over the last ten years, and even if this is a new kind of intimacy, it's like they're discovering a language they both know, speaking the words aloud for the first time.

It’s Caleb who closes the distance, this time, pressing his lips on Essek’s with urgency, as if he needed to be reassured that he’s still here, that this is real. The materiality of Essek, his soft palms against the rough grain of Caleb’s beard, his clothes bunched up in Caleb’s fists when he grabs Essek’s hips, pulling him close. A noise comes out of Caleb’s throat, unbidden and raw, and he feels Essek shiver in his arms as his lips part with a soft gasp.

Essek tastes like a distant memory of something he never experienced before, like nostalgia for a place he’s never been. They deepen the kiss hesitantly, at first, and then with a quiet, desperate hunger. If the conversation they just had led them here, it also made clear that they don’t have all the time in the world. It’s nothing new, but it’s all Caleb can think about, and he knows it’s the same for Essek.

Reluctantly, he pulls back, but he leans their foreheads together. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispers.

“I will stay for as long as you’ll have me,” is Essek’s immediate answer. He flings his arms around Caleb’s neck, clinging to him, holding him close.

It’s easy for Caleb to hold him as well, surrounding his waist with his arms, less desperately but firmly. He inhales deeply, taking in Essek’s scent, realizing he already knows it. He feels moisture on his neck where Essek’s face is pressed, but he doesn’t say anything. He just closes his eyes and lets years and years of unspoken feelings between them finally come to a head.

*

They have time, in the end. Not all of it, of course, nobody does; but at least some, and it’s enough. Caleb likes to think that they make the best of it, so at least they don’t add any more regrets to the ones that are already burdening them. Sharing their weight doesn’t erase them, but it makes them considerably easier to bear.

There are no grand romantic gestures, just an agreement, one night, over dinner, that they might as well make it official. Neither of them is going anywhere after all, especially not after Essek took a sabbatical of undetermined duration from the Marble Tomes to focus on his own independent research and the school. For a while, they will grow old together.

And so Caleb watches his husband teach and care about their students and eventually let them go, slowly learning to make peace with all that, and if he had ever been worried about the gamble he made — on the future, on Essek, on himself — he isn’t anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr all the time, frankly, at [mllekurtz](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/). Drop me a line anytime.


End file.
